The studies I was talking about do show a short-term improvement, but by the time the children reach high school age, there's no appreciable difference between those who went to preschool and those who didn't. Also, while some children may be ready for relatively advanced material by preschool age (one of my sisters was also reading and doing basic math at age 3), the percentage is probably relatively low, certainly not sufficient reason for government-funded preschool at taxpayer expense. It would be like handing out free college to everyone 12 or older._________________Homeschool Articles - Events - Support Groups

I was at his campaign site. I do not like to spread rumors, and I went to the site to get the facts straight. I didn't see anything a bout the national anthem other than the whole not having the hand on the heart thing, which isn't a big deal. So I emailed my concern and I am waiting to hear back.

I have been on the school committee for my local school. Doubling the budget may do some help, but they would always need more. I have seen the way that they work and some work wonderfully and others are very corrupt. Giving them more money isn't going to help them, the children wouldn't see much of it.

We need to make sure that the money is going to the right places. NCLB may be flawed but the idea is sound. We need to know what schools are working and what ones aren't. But then we need to help those schools figure out how to work better, not just take away the resources. Something needs to be done, not just throw more money at them, they need to be trained.

Daycare isn't always the best option, Parents should be given more options that are viable and healthy, incentives for those that want to take care of others children. Stricter rules for day care too. I Florida, (when I was in school 6 years ago) A infant day care could have as many as 6 infants per teacher! How is that helping anyone? Wat happens if there is an emergency, and how are they going to be getting any quality care? Yet many parents don't have a choice because they can't afford quality care. What about an incentive for those moms that choose to stay at home? I know not all moms want to, but some have to, why not let the gov help them? if you are going to give money to someone why not the parents?_________________Phi 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

On the war, what most do not realize is that if we decided to get out right now, we would not see an immediate flow of free money. It is costly to mobalize an army and get them back home and the clean up required by law that we will supposed to do, which takes years and with great amount of cost to the tax payer.

I am not decrying the war, but I think it is a fairy tale that a candidate will immediately bring home troops and then have all this money immediately available to do something else.

A second issue I have with government estimates on programs is that they are almost always low estimates.

I personally do not believe education should be a governmental responsibility because education by her nature cannot be a neutral worldview, therefore it will violate the worldviews of other people.

I still support the idea of school vouchers (assuming we're going to continue to fund schools at taxpayer expense). Good schools will expand and take over other districts, bad schools will die. Lousy teachers will have to be fired, since if the kids are unhappy, the parents are unhappy, and if the parents are unhappy, they just go find (or start) a different school.

You might lose part of a year of education while the system reshuffles, but in the end I think that the taxpayer would get much better education for less money. A heck of a lot of money gets wasted on school bureacracy or lousy teachers right now, with the overt support of the teachers' unions. As a group, teachers have just about the worst test scores of any demographic, so we're paying above-average wages for below-average candidates - probably because a lot of the really good teachers just can't stand the way things are run, and go work in a private school instead for less money._________________Homeschool Articles - Events - Support Groups

How are you going to vote if we're stuck with McCain or Huckabee vs Obama? Obama is more likeable than either, and his policy probably isn't that far off from Huckabee's. Clinton winning the primary would make the decision a lot easier, as I'd go so far as to donate to make sure she doesn't win.

uh given the choice between Obama and McCain I will vote McCain. You don't vote for a president based on how "likable" he is. This is not highschool, It is not a popularity contest.

Heh, I didn't mean it that way. Given that McCain is extremely liberal himself, it may come down to which of the candidates you think is less likely to do something totally insane, rather than just long-term damaging. There's also a school of thought that says we should elect a Democrat this time around, at least that way when things get screwed up even worse (as they will regardless of who wins...), Republicans won't be blamed. We'll have a much better chance of getting someone decent four years from now.

Just to revisit this, now that the primaries are past and the election is upon us - I still feel more or less the same way regarding McCain and Obama vs homeschooling, but in other areas it turns out Obama is much, much worse than I originally assumed...

- He seems incapable of making decisions without consulting several hundred advisors
- He's shown his willingness to stomp on free speech (attempting to sue in Missouri over campaign ads, blocking reporters who don't say what he wants, etc.)
- He's a self-admitted Marxist, who wants to redistribute the wealth from the rich (including the middle class, since the rich are all moving their assets ahead of the election) to the poor
- He's also a self-admitted racist, someone who purposely ignores his white heritage and has been a member of a white-hating church for 10+ years
- He seems overly friendly to the Muslim world, though I'm pretty sure he isn't one himself
- He's willing to spend large amounts of money to improve his foreign popularity, for instance $700,000 for staging, lights, etc. in Germany
- Both his campaign and a fund he was on the board of directors of donated large sums of money to ACORN, which has been implicated in massive voter fraud (hundreds of thousands of false registrations)
- He was one of the main recipients of money from Fannie and Freddy, and voted - along with most of the Democrats - against properly restricting them. This directly led to the housing crash, which is well on its way to demolishing both the US and world economy.
- He may not even be a valid candidate, his birth certificate has been conveniently locked up until after the election

If he gets elected, we're looking at state-sanctioned communism and possibly the end of free speech (here comes the "Fairness Doctrine" again...) Sadly, there was no way to know most of this until recently, just hoping it's not too late and McCain squeaks out a win. Zogby puts McCain one point ahead, but that's within the margin of error and it could certainly go either way, esp. if ARORN has managed to steal 1% of the vote.